In a business move of political significance, Mediaset España announced this Wednesday the appointment of Cristina Garmendia, former minister in the second socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, as the new president of the audiovisual communication group that owns Telecinco and Cuatro. Doctor in Molecular Biology and MBA from IESE, businesswoman and until now president of the COTEC Foundation for innovation and advisor in various entities, Garmendia (San Sebastián, 62 years old) succeeds the financier Borja Prado as president of the Spanish subsidiary of the group Italian communication. This was decided by the company’s board of directors meeting this Tuesday. Until now, and since December 2017, the former minister has been an independent director of the company and a member of the Appointments and Remuneration Committee, as well as the Audit and Compliance Committee.
The presidency of Mediaset Spain remained vacant since Prado’s departure at the end of last year after almost two years in office and various tensions with the company’s management team. Prado had in turn succeeded the recently deceased Alejandro Echevarría, who served as president for a quarter of a century, forming a successful alliance with Paolo Vasile as CEO. The result of that television coalition led to large results accounts and a no less controversial television model that, on the other hand, revalidated audience leadership for years, currently in the hands of its competitor Atresmedia.
Echevarría and Vasile also promoted the company’s exit to the stock market and agreed with PRISA, the publishing group of EL PAÍS, to integrate its free-to-air television activities. The result of that operation was a conglomerate that currently owns seven Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) channels owned by Mediaset España, with Telecinco and Cuatro among them, in addition to an on-demand content platform, various production companies and a division advertising. Once the group stopped trading on the Spanish Stock Exchange, it currently belongs to the transnational media empire Media for Europe, owned by the heirs of the late Italian magnate and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and whose reach extends between Italy, Spain and Germany. .
Vasile’s departure as CEO in October 2022 shook the company’s foundations, giving rise to a new structure. Vasile’s successor, Alessandro Salem, maintained a power struggle with the then president, Borja Prado, which resulted in total control of executive functions in favor of the former. Since June of last year, Prado maintained an institutional representation role without executive duties. Operational decisions, corporate management, communication, content, the advertising division and news were left under Salem’s control. The latter determined the control of the editorial line, which Prado tried to retain and with its movements provoked uncertainty inside and outside the network in the face of a possible turn to the right of the ideological direction of a channel whose most of the content is focused on the entertainment and reality television.
Structural changes also affected the grill. Alessandro Salem, successor to Paolo Vasile as CEO of Mediaset España, struck down Telecinco’s flagship Save me at the end of last season and took Ana Rosa Quintana from mornings to afternoons to occupy that space. The CEO stated in an interview with EL PAÍS after the crisis due to the cancellation of the format presented by Jorge Javier Vázquez that “an afternoon program on free-to-air television like Telecinco does not have to have political connotations.” In the same interview, he denied that the departure of Save me obey a right-wing from Telecinco: “Our job is to entertain, it is not to do politics. A generalist television like ours is a television for everyone, it has to give everyone a voice and be as independent as possible, also in the news.” Salem has also wanted to recover the momentum of the news in recent months. And the bet for the evening news has been the signing of Carlos Franganillo, from Spanish Television, who works in a section where Vicente Vallés maintains the leadership from Antena 3.
The news and formats such as Pass word either The wheel of luck They exerted leverage last year for Antena 3 to be crowned the most watched channel in 2023, according to the consultancies Barlovento and GECA based on measurement data collected by Kantar Media. Antena 3, owned by the Atresmedia group, maintained a 13.3% average screen share in 2023, while Telecinco fell from 12.3% in 2022 to 10.4% on average. Atresmedia—owner of Antena 3 Televisión, La Sexta and Onda Cero—and Mediaset España—owner of Telecinco and Cuatro—shared most of the audiovisual advertising market last year.
Mediaset España has recently returned to the Union of Open Commercial Televisions (UTECA), an association founded in 1998 by Mediaset itself with Atresmedia (then Gestevisión Telecinco and Antena 3 TV) and from which it abruptly left five years ago under the leadership of Paolo Vasile. for his differences with several associates. Sources from Mediaset España link the return to the recovery of institutional relations and the recognition of the greater ease for administrations to have a single interlocutor who, as an employer, can relate to the Spanish audiovisual sector. UTECA associates (Atresmedia, Mediaset, Dkiss, Net Tv, Real Madrid TV, Ten, Trece and Veo TV) today have 21 free and open DTT channels.
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